First Cousins of Queen Sofia of Spain and King Constantine II of Greece

by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2019

Queen Sofia of Spain (born 1938)

(All photos credits – Wikipedia unless otherwise noted)

Queen Sofia, the wife King Juan Carlos I of Spain, was Queen Consort of Spain from her husband’s accession in 1975 until his abdication in 2014 in favor of their son, King Felipe VI. Born Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark on November 2, 1938, at Villa Psychiko, in the suburbs of Athens, Greece, She married the future King Juan Carlos of Spain, a descendant of Queen Victoria via her youngest daughter Princess Beatrice, and had two daughters and one son.

 

King Constantine II of Greece (1940 – 2023)

King Constantine II of Greece was the King of Greece (styled King of the Hellenes) from 1964 until the monarchy was abolished in 1973. He was born on June 2, 1940, at Villa Psychiko, in the suburbs of Athens, Greece. In 1964, Constantine married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, the youngest daughter of King Frederick IX of Denmark, and a descendant of Queen Victoria via her son Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught. Constantine and Anne-Marie had five children.

Sofia was the eldest of the three children and Constantine was the second of the three children and the only son of King Paul of Greece and Princess Frederica of Hanover, both descendants of Queen Victoria’s eldest child Victoria, Princess Royal who married Friedrich III, German Emperor. Sofia and Constantine’s paternal grandparents were King Constantine I of Greece and Princess Sophie of Prussia. Their maternal grandparents were Ernst August III of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick and Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, the only daughter of Wilhelm II, German Emperor. Queen Sofia of Spain and King Constantine II of Greece have fifteen first cousins. They share their first cousins with their sister Princess Irene of Greece.

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Paternal Aunts and Uncles of Queen Sofia of Spain, born Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark and King Constante II of Greece: Children of King Constantine I of Greece and Princess Sophie of Prussia

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Maternal Aunts and Uncles of Queen Sofia of Spain, born Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark and King Constante II of Greece: Children of Ernst August III of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick and Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia

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PATERNAL FIRST COUSINS

Paternal First Cousins: Children of King Alexander of Greece and Aspasia Manos

Princess Alexandra of Greece, Queen of Yugoslavia (1921 – 1993)

Princess Alexandra of Greece was the only child of King Alexander of Greece and his commoner wife Aspasia Manos, the daughter of Petros Manos, who had served as Master of the Horse to Alexander’s father King Constantine I. Aspasia would not be recognized as Queen. King Alexander died after contracting septicemia from a monkey bite. Aspasia was four months pregnant at the time, and gave birth to their daughter, Alexandra, in March 1921. Princess Alexandra married King Peter II of Yugoslavia and they had one son Crown Prince Alexander. After World War II, the Yugoslav monarchy was abolished and Alexandra and Peter separated.

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Paternal First Cousins: Children of Princess Helen of Greece and King Carol of Romania

King Michael of Romania (1921 – 2017)

King Michael of Romania, also known as Mihai, was King of Romania twice, from 1927 – 1930, and then from 1940 – 1947, when the monarchy was abolished. Michael married Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma, the daughter of Prince René of Bourbon-Parma and Princess Margaret of Denmark. The couple had five daughters. Michael worked as a commercial pilot and also worked for an aircraft equipment company. It would be 43 years before he set foot on Romanian soil again. Eventually, the Romanian government restored Michael’s citizenship and returned several properties to the royal family. When Michael died in 2017, he was the second oldest living descendant of Queen Victoria. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was older by four months.

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Paternal First Cousins: Children of Princess Irene of Greece and Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta

Prince Amadeo, Duke of Aosta (1943 – 2021)

Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta was a claimant to the head of the House of Savoy, the former royal family of Italy. Amedeo married Princess Claude of Orléans, the daughter of Prince Henri of Orléans, Count of Paris, the Orléanist claimant to the French throne. The couple had two daughters and one son before divorcing. Amedeo married again to Silvia Paternò di Spedalotto but the couple had no children.

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Paternal First Cousins: Children of Princess Katherine of Greece, The Lady Katherine Brandram and Major Richard Brandram

Paul Brandram’s christening: Lady Katherine Brandram and her husband with their son, held by Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent

Paul Brandram (1948 – 2020)

Paul Brandram grew up in England. He married Jennifer Steele and they had two daughters and one son before divorcing after eighteen years of marriage. He made a second marriage to Katherine Moreton.

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MATERNAL FIRST COUSINS

Maternal First Cousins: Children of Ernst August IV, Prince of Hanover, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick and Princess Ortrud of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg

Princess Marie of Hanover, Countess of Hochberg (born 1952)

Princess Marie of Hanover married Count Michael of Hochberg and had two sons.

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Ernst August V at the wedding of his son Christian, 2018; Credit – www.zimbio.com

Prince Ernst August V of Hanover (born 1954)

Ernst August V is among the senior male-line descendants of King George III of the United Kingdom. This line is directly descended from King George III’s son, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, who became King of Hanover due to the Salic Law which forbade female succession following the death of his brother King William IV and the accession of Queen Victoria. Ernst August V is the Head of the House of Hanover and pretender to the thrones of the Kingdom of Hanover and the Duchy of Brunswick.

Ernst August first married Chantal Hochuli, the daughter of Johann Gustav Hochuli, a Swiss millionaire from his family’s chocolate company and architect. The couple had two sons and divorced. He then married Princess Caroline of Monaco and had one daughter. While initially very happy, the couple, still legally married, now leads separate lives.

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Embed from Getty Images 
Prince Ludwig Rudolph of Hanover, held by his mother after his christening. Also in the photo is his father and his elder brother Prince Ernst August

Prince Ludwig Rudolph of Hanover (1955 – 1988)

Prince Ludwig Rudolph married Countess Isabelle von Thurn und Valsassina-Como-Vercelli and the couple had one son. Ludwig died by suicide shortly after discovering the body of his wife, who had died from a drug overdose.

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Princess Olga of Hanover (born 1958), unmarried

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Embed from Getty Images
Princess Alexandra with her husband

Princess Alexandra of Hanover, Princess of Leiningen (born 1959)

Princess Alexandra of Hanover married another descendant of Queen Victoria, Andreas, 8th Prince of Leiningen.  The couple had two sons and one daughter.

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Prince Heinrich of Hanover (born 1961)

Prince Heinrich of Hanover is a historian and publisher. He writes under the name Heinrich von Hannover. He married Thyra von Westernhagen whose family is from the landed nobility of Thuringia, Germany and who studied forestry at university. The couple had two sons and one daughter.

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Maternal First Cousins: Children of Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hanover and Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark (sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh)

Prince Welf Ernst of Hanover (1947 – 1981)

Welf married Wibke van Gunsteren and they had one daughter. Welf and his wife became disciples of the Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh also known as Osho.  They took the names Vimalkirti (“Spotless Splendor”) and Wibke Prem Turiya (“Spiritual love”) and moved with their daughter to Poona, India to live in Osho’s ashram.  In 1979, the couple divorced but continued to live together in India.  Welf died at a clinic in Poona, India from a cerebral hemorrhage after collapsing during a morning karate practice session.  After Welf’s death, his daughter was brought to England by her grandparents so she could have a normal education.

Welf Ernst and his siblings Georg and Friederike are also first cousins of the children of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward.

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Prince Georg of Hanover (born 1949)

Prince Georg of Hanover married Victoria Anne Bee, daughter of Robert Bee and Eleonore Gräfin Fugger von Babenhausen. The couple had two daughters.

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Princess Friederike of Hanover, Mrs. Jerry Cyr (born 1954)

Princess Friederike of Hanover is a godchild of her aunt by marriage, Queen Elizabeth II. She attended Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada and remained in Canada. Friederike married Jerry William Cyr, son of Gordon Paul Cyr and Emma Grandbois in Vancouver, Canada. The couple had one daughter and one son.

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Maternal First Cousins: Children of Prince Christian Oscar of Hanover and Mireille Dutry

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Works Cited

  • Lundy, D. (2019). Main Page. [online] Thepeerage.com. Available at: http://www.thepeerage.com/. (for genealogy information)
  • Unofficial Royalty. (2019). Unofficial Royalty. [online] Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com. (for biographical and genealogy information)
  • Wikipedia. (2019). Main Page. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/.  (for biographical and genealogy information)